If the repeal of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights were on the ballot in November, we’d urge Colorado voters to vote “yes.” Just as we unsuccessfully urged voters to say “no” to TABOR in 1992.

However, there are at least three reasons voters will never see an outright repeal of TABOR. One, such a repeal would violate the single-subject rule that lawmakers asked voters to pass in response to TABOR. Two, Colorado voters recently “Raised the Bar,” making it breathtakingly difficult and expensive for citizens to put a change to the state Constitution on the ballot. Three, there’s simply not the political will for an outright repeal.

The good news is that, while a repeal may be elusive, there’s a viable fix proposed by two Republicans we hope finds traction. Lawmakers ought to give it have a fair hearing and send a version they can support to voters in November.

We get why a straight-up repeal, even if one could be presented to voters, would fail. The 25-year-old law is way too popular, and not without good reasons. Some aspects of TABOR fit well within our state. While we decry many of its complicated budget constraints, the law attempts to balance a republican form of government in which voters rely on their elected officials to set tax policy with the populist, direct-democracy component that voters must approve new taxes or tax increases.

The complicated balance, while inefficient and ultimately hurtful to our growing state, has certainly made Colorado government more efficient. (If only the same could be said about our federal lawmakers.)

But TABOR’s powerful check on government spending in reality has been a padlock on the purse-strings (or Colorado-logo emblazoned wallet) of the General Assembly.

Since 1993, statewide voters have approved only five tax increases out of 17 ballot questions.

Voters did approve the mother of all tax increases with the $3.6 billion Referendum C in 2005. Ref. C wasn’t a traditional tax increase, though; instead it allowed the state to keep billions in taxpayer refunds over five years. TABOR requires revenue be returned to voters when the state collects more than is allowed under a growth formula in the bill, it’s called the revenue cap.

However, when the 2001 dot-com bubble burst, it exposed a major flaw in the TABOR formula and the state experienced its first significant “ratchet-down.”

In 2001, about $1 billion was refunded to taxpayers — times were good. But in 2002, state revenue dropped from $8.1 billion to $7.8 billion. Going forward, the TABOR cap would have been based on the lowest point of the recession, forever — and rather arbitrarily — reducing the size of government. Ref. C changed the formula so that the cap would grow uninhibited by drops in revenue, and instead be based on the highest point of revenue during the five-year timeout.

Had voters not had the foresight to pass Ref. C, the 2008 housing collapse would have devastated state government.

We don’t want to pretend government hasn’t grown under TABOR. Because it has — substantially.

That growth occurred despite lawmakers reducing taxes three times. In 2001, the state’s sales tax was reduced from 3 percent to 2.9 percent. In 1999 and 2000, income tax was reduced from 5 percent to 4.75 percent and 4.63 percent, respectively. If voters raised both taxes to the 1999 levels, it would have generated about $670 million more last year, according to calculations by the budget staff for the governor’s office.

That’s money our state could use. We’ve seen the proposed 2017-18 state budget: The competition over resources for transportation, education and Medicaid is fierce. We are convinced Colorado needs more revenue to fund the quality of life we’ve all come to expect from this great state.

One solution would be for lawmakers to ask voters for a tax increase to fund transportation. We’ve said we would support such a question going to voters, though we’d like to see the details.

Another is to ask voters if the state can retain expected TABOR tax refunds for the next five years. Such a move seems like a reasonable request, but, again, such efforts are historically difficult. Voters refused to let lawmakers keep any refunds in 1998, 2000, 2001 (to study a rail line from Denver to Eagle), and in 2008.

Finally, there’s the third option, the fix we alluded to earlier. Lawmakers could ask voters to “rationalize the processes,” as Rep. Dan Thurlow, R-Grand Junction, says when he explains his bill.

House Bill 1187 would modify the formula within TABOR that determines how much revenue the state can keep every year. The formula currently is based on population plus inflation. Thurlow would base it on the five-year average change in personal income in Colorado. The result would be reduced tax refunds in the first two years and then no tax refunds in the foreseeable future under the new formula, he says.

“Having a growth constraint is probably good,” Thurlow says, but he wants one based on a more concrete indicator of how Colorado is growing.

We think his idea could be a fix that keeps the good in TABOR, while allowing the state to retain revenue, hopefully to build and repair roads and bridges.

At 25, TABOR is sitting pretty in the minds of too many supporters. It is time for its detractors to find a reasonable fix and move on.

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